


The In Between Place

by Isadorabelle



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Other, Severus' point of view, he sort of dies, he's not having any fun, not really for kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:41:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22555768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isadorabelle/pseuds/Isadorabelle
Summary: The major event from Chapter One of "Lazarus, Rise", from Severus' perspective. *It is not essential to Lazarus, Rise. I'm just in a dark mood and wanted to write something. So, here's this.
Kudos: 9





	The In Between Place

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not having a great night and I sat down to work on chapter 11, but I'm in a dark mood, so I did this instead. Feeling dark, yes, but it is what I imagined it was like for him. I think Severus was looking forward to 'retirement' and didn't much like the change in plans.

It felt like someone had fashioned a bass drum out of his skull. The first hit resonated not only through his head, but his mind and soul, shaking him uncontrollably. Words joined in, so muffled and far away that he could scarcely believe they were his own and yet, while his mouth remained shut, he heard them—or rather had a sense, some inkling that it was his own words, uttered from his own mouth in his own raspy voice, that were so far off.

Severus opened his eyes to focus on something, anything beyond the reverberating deepness that shook him to his roots.

Immediately he regretted it as a massive black cloud, punctuated occasionally by angry red lighting, squeezed around him and threatened to swallow him whole. Between the wisps that would pass in front of his nose and threaten to touch him, and the smell of his own sweet, metallic blood, it became harder to breathe.

Blood?

Yes, his blood. Nagini. But that meant he was dead.

How was he dead?

Those thoughts led to anxiety, which was rapidly falling into fear, when the chaotic cloud began to relax around him. A form took shape, first vague but with each second it came into focus. His height, his same build, and soon color filled sallow cheeks and two dark eyes stared back at him.

Severus Snape stared at Severus Snape: one man covered in blood with a complex expression of wariness, uncertainty and even a bit of fear while the other was far simpler. Clean robes and amusement, and a hint of puckish right at the corner of his ticked up mouth, separated one from the other.

The smell of his blood still filled his nostrils and the Other Him only watched with an unnerving stare as he tried to grab at the parts of his mind that, little piece by little piece, seemed to be yanked away by the storm.

“Is this hell?”

The wavering question made the Other Him grin—an expression he knew himself capable of, as he’d wear a similar one in the privacy of his own loo when examining his teeth. The part of his mind that could focus took note that he made the right choice to not smile in public.

“Only of your own making. You chose the venue darling, and my outfit. I merely came for the cake.”

It didn’t sound like him. It was his voice, but not his words. Not his tone.

“….devil?”

The figure only grinned again and held up two long, slender fingers.

“Want to try for three? No, then? Very well.”

Other Him stepped closer and the darkness of his eyes spilled into the whites until from corner to corner of his hooded eye sockets was darkness. Unlike his own, two hollow holes that had had the love ripped from them long ago, his raged. Chaos, power, mirth and controlled madness threatened to burst out and, if he could remember how to move, he would have stepped back.

“I am Death. Your birth opened a door that I will not allow shut. You don’t get to die. Not today. Not until I say.” Other Him stepped closer and though he could not see his pupils move, Severus felt his eyes asses the bloodied, apparently-not-quite-dead figure in front of him.

“But this look,” Death started as the figure began to lose color, “will not do. This will go much easier if you just relax. You might even enjoy it.” As the form began to lose shape, he could see the amusement on his face before Death, a pillar now of darkness, lunged at him. Through every pore, his eyes, nose, mouth and ears, Death invaded and as he both felt all of himself being whisked away in the storm and yet remain firmly on the ground, he clung to what thought fragments he could.

They were magnets, attracted to each other in the storm only to be flipped and yanked away by the gusts. It was a decade, or a second, when they finally began to clot. A jumbled mass of words, and thoughts, feelings and impulses, piled on each other haphazardly before slowly tumbling into place again. As they did, he saw Nagini, with eyes that should’ve been his, shudder and twist in on herself. He felt as Death consumed her and before he could protest, before he could fight to the surface and plead that the chaos who took him let him go, he’d moved on to the Dark Lord himself. Death seized him, silencing his protests with thick smoke and hissed a soft ‘hush’. And, as the irresistible sweetness of Tom Riddle’s death overwhelmed him, he didn’t fight the satisfaction of it. As he unwillingly settled into the grip Death had, he began to enjoy it and only halfheartedly slipped into the inviting darkness Death was so intent on settling him in.


End file.
